Commemorated on November 23
Archimandrite Gregory (Peradze) was born August 31, 1899, in the
village of Bakurtsikhe, in the Sighnaghi district of Kakheti. His
father, Roman Peradze, was a priest.
In 1918, Gregory completed
his studies at the theological school and seminary in Tbilisi and
enrolled in the philosophy department at Tbilisi University. Three years
later, in 1921, he began to teach at the university, but the Georgian
Church soon sent him to Germany to study theology. From 1922 to 1925,
Gregory studied theology and eastern languages at the University of
Berlin, and in 1925 he transferred to the philosophy department at the
University of Bonn, where he received a doctoral degree in philosophy
for his dissertation “The Monastic Life in Georgia from Its Origins to
1064.”Gregory continued to attend lectures in theology at the University
of Louvain until 1927.
In 1927, Gregory moved to England to
continue his career in academia, and there he became acquainted with the
old patristic manuscripts that were preserved in the library
collections of the British Museum and Oxford University. In July of that
year, Gregory was named an associate professor at the University of
Bonn, and he returned there to lecture on the history of Georgian and
Armenian literature. In 1931, Gregory was tonsured a monk, ordained a
priest, and appointed dean of the Georgian church in Paris. A year later
he was invited to Oxford to lecture on Georgian history.
A new
period in St. Gregory’s life began later in 1932, when the Metropolitan
of all Poland, Dionysius Waledinsky, invited him to be a professor of
Patrology and the chair of Orthodox Theology at Warsaw University. He
often delivered lectures at academic conferences and in academic centers
throughout Europe. He sought tirelessly for ancient Georgian
manuscripts and historical documents on the Georgian Church. His
searches took him to Syria, Palestine, Greece, Bulgaria, Austria,
Romania, Italy and England. As a result of his labors, many long-lost
Georgian manuscripts surfaced again.
Humility and industriousness
characterized the Hieromartyr Gregory throughout his life. In difficult
moments he often repeated the words of St. John Chrysostom: “Glory be to
God for all things!”
In the 1920s, as the Red Army was securing
its occupation of Georgia, the nation’s treasures were carried away to
France for safekeeping. Later, in the 1940s, Georgian society was
unaware that, due to St. Gregory’s efforts alone, many treasures of
Georgian national culture were spared confiscation by the Nazis in
Paris. Risking execution at the hands of a firing squad, St. Gregory
wrote in the official documentation presented to the Nazis that these
items were of no particular value but were precious to the Georgians as
part of their national consciousness.
Nor did most of Georgian
society know that, in Paris, Archimandrite Gregory had founded a
Georgian church in honor of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Nino and a
parish journal called
Jvari Vazisa, or “The Cross of Vines.”
In
May of 1942, St. Gregory was arrested by the Gestapo. The priceless
Georgian manuscripts he had preserved and many sacred objects that had
been crafted by ancient Georgian masters and collected by St. Gregory
during his travels (in hopes of returning them to Georgia) disappeared
after his apartment was searched.
Archimandrite Gregory was
arrested for sheltering and aiding Jews and other victims of the fascist
persecutions. He was incarcerated at Pawiak Prison in Warsaw, and
deported to Auschwitz at the beginning of November.
In the camp an
inmate killed a German officer. The guards drove everyone out of the
barracks absolutely naked, forcing them to stay in the below-freezing
temperatures until someone confessed. St. Gregory decided to take the
blame for the murder, thus saving innocent prisoners from freezing to
death. The guards let loose the dogs on the martyr, poured gasoline over
him, and lit him on fire. Then they said, “Poles, go warm yourselves
around him, your intercessor.”
According to the official German
documentation, Gregory Peradze died on December 6, 1942 [November 23,
old style], at 4:45 in the afternoon. (According to another account, the
martyr entered the gas chamber in place of a Jewish man with a large
family. This was reported by a former prisoner, who, after being
liberated, visited Metropolitan Dionysius and gave him St. Gregory’s
cross.) In the end, like Christ Himself, Archimandrite Gregory died for
having taken upon himself the sin of another.
SOURCE:
SAINT OR FEAST POSTED THIS DATE 2013(with 2012's link here also and further, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and even 2007!)
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